


in which two brats bake bread

by Lohrendrell



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: (c'mon it's lambert), Chaotic Uncle and Niece, Found Family, Gen, Kaer Morhen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26898142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lohrendrell/pseuds/Lohrendrell
Summary: She tried to mimic the way he scowled. “You wouldn’t dare.”He arched an eyebrow. “Try me.”--(Lambert and Ciri being their chaotic uncle and niece selves, per usual.)
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Lambert
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	in which two brats bake bread

**Author's Note:**

> Lambert is Ciri's favourite witcher uncle and nobody can't convince me otherwise. I already suspected it when I read Blood of Elves, but when I got to Tower of the Swallow there's a tiny bit moment that probably nobody cares, but I took that to heart as canon evidence **that they were the best chaotic uncle and niece ever!!!**. I wish there were more interactions between them!!!

The gates of Kaer Morhen closed behind the witchers’ backs. From the watchpost tower she was never supposed to have climbed, Ciri watched as Coën, Eskel, Vesemir, and Geralt led their horses down the mountain.

“Where are they going?” Ciri asked the remaining witcher, not yelling because she’d learned by now of their heightened senses.

Lambert didn’t even look at her as he walked back to the keep, saying, “What the fuck are you doing up there? Get down right this instant.”

Ciri huffed. “You didn’t answer me!”

“Fine,” Lambert said, “then stay there and freeze. I’m shutting the doors so the cold doesn’t get in.”

He opened the doors for the great hall. Winter had just ended, but the snow hadn’t finished falling on top of the blue mountains. The Killer was still slippery, the monsters inhabiting it only now starting to wake up from hibernation. Ciri could see puffs of breath in front of her every time she spoke.

Knowing he would leave her outside if he said so (Lambert was the only witcher who never made empty threats when it came to get her obeying him), Ciri quickly climbed off the watchpost, reaching the floor with a succession of jumps and pirouettes that Vesemir would certainly say were unnecessary; there was a makeshift set of stairs just on the other side of the monument.

Once secured inside the keep, Ciri said, “I asked where they are going.”

Lambert shut the heavy doors and barred them. “Don’t play dumb. I know Geralt told you he and Vesemir are going into the village, to the marketfair, to refill our provisions and buy some fabric.”

“Why?”

“Look at this place.” Lambert gestured around them, scowling in irritation. “Do you see anywhere we can plant for loads of food or linen? Be more observant, kid, and stop asking stupid questions.”

Ciri pouted, offended, but at this point, she learned not to take any of it at heart. Lambert was always offending everyone, all the time; it was like a game to him, Eskel explained once, and if you let him get under your skin, it was your lost.

“And Eskel and Coën?” she asked, following him into the kitchen.

“Back on the Path.”

“Why?”

“It’s where a witcher belongs. The keep is only for winters.” He washed his hands on a pot of water at the corner of the room and started rummaging around, bringing pots and other stuff into the big table in the middle of the kitchen.

Ciri asked, “You’re not going with them?”

“Not for now.”

“Why?”

“I was tasked with a little brat to watch.”

“I am not a brat! And I don’t need you to watch me.”

“Sure you don’t.” Lambert snickered, an ugly, mean smirk painting his face. He beckoned her to the balcony where he set up flour, water and some grains. “Come on, come help me make bread for dinner. We’re almost out of food already.”

“I don’t want to. I want to go train outside. I want to train my signs!”

“You can’t do signs. It’s a waste of time.”

“I’m not staying here making bread! I’m going outside to train!”

“Fine.” Lambert shrugged. “But when you pass out from cold and hunger outside and beg me for a piece of bread, you know what I’m going to say?”

Ciri pouted again, puffing her cheeks and crossing her arms.

“I’m going to say: bread is for helpers. And you won’t get one because you were too busy being a brat instead of helping with your own food.”

“You wouldn’t,” she challenged. “Geralt would beat you up if you ever harmed me.”

“I wouldn’t be harming you. You’d be harming yourself with your stubbornness and lack of discipline.”

She tried to mimic the way he scowled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Try me.”

Ciri tried to stare him down, but Lambert was back to moving the bread dough in his hands and not paying attention to her. Ciri huffed, uncrossing her arms and tightening her hands into two little balls of fury by her sides. When none of that worked as it would with Geralt or Vesemir or Coën, and sometimes even Eskel, she sighed in defeat.

“Wait, wait!” Lambert said when she reached for her ball of dough. “Where are your manners? Don’t be an animal, your hands are dirty, go wash them first.”

“Don’t call me an animal,” Ciri said, but obeyed.

“Then don’t act like one.”

Together, they mixed half a dozen balls of bread dough, mostly in silence. Ciri asked questions about the Signs and the witchers, and about sword fighting in general, and Lambert answered them patiently—which, coming from him, meant with a lot of sarcasm and snappy humor. Ciri quite liked that about him, she was learning a lot of swear words and a lot of new ways to piss adults off by highlighting their stupidity. He lit the fire with Igni and, as they waited for the bread to be ready, he took her outside to train.

“Don’t jump so much, you’ll only acquire a bad habit,” Lambert belittled her. “You’re tiny and light now, but you’ll grow and gain muscle, someday you won’t be able to keep it up and it will slow you down. Besides…” He flashed the Sign of Aard, sending her a couple of meters away, landing on her back on the melting snow. “Every time you jump you lose your ground. Only do it when strictly necessary.”

“Fine,” Ciri said, and took stance to attack once again.

They trained well into the evening, only pausing occasionally to check on the bread and take care of the animals that were still there. At lunch, they ate a few slices of cheese and drank a few gulps of ale—a treat for her, Lambert announced, for having successfully managed to hit him on the knee with a kick. The other witchers had nearly emptied the pantry, but Lambert didn’t seem upset by that; going back on the Path, they needed it more than them, he explained. “And Vesemir and your father will soon be back with more provisions,” he told her. “Now shut up and eat. Get your elbows off the table.”

It only occurred to her what he said later that night, when they were lounging near the fireplace on the great hall, having bathed and eaten the bread for dinner. Ciri was pretending to read a bestiary of vampires, while Lambert chewed on tobacco with his eyes closed, using his hands as a pillow behind his head.

“Lambert?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you call Geralt earlier?” she asked, feeling her cheeks and ears warming up in embarrassment.

“I call your dad a lot of things. Pretty boy, stupid wolf, do on a sorceress’s leash—you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“That,” Ciri said. “What you just said.”

Lambert’s cat-slitted, golden eyes fixed on her. It was a common thing that witchers did, Ciri quickly learned on her stay at Kaer Morhen: stare at you intently, the same way wild animals did when they were about to attack, but without meaning it that way. It was just their way to assess someone, analyze a person while they gathered their thoughts.

“You mean ‘your dad’?” Lambert asked, and Ciri felt even more embarrassed. She would’ve thought to have this conversation with Eskel a hundred times over before even thinking about talking about it with Lambert.

She nodded.

“Isn’t that what he is?” he said. “You’re his child of destiny. Don’t tell me he didn’t tell you the story, that idiot.”

“He didn’t, but I… I knew about it.”

“Your grandmother told you,” he guessed.

She shook her head. “No. The ladies-in-waiting at… at Cintra.” She tried not to think of Cintra and her family; it brought bad memories, even when she tried to remember the happiest moments of playing in the gardens with Eist, or when she hid under her grandmama’s and scared her to death when she entered her chambers. Whenever she tried to think about it, the memories revolving Cintra eventually revolved back to fire, the smell of burning flesh, the knight with the helmet adorned with the feathers of a bird of prey telling her to stop struggling, to—

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, stop thinking so hard.” Lambert’s voice brought her back from her reveries, and she looked up to see him scowling. “You’re Geralt’s child indeed, both of you all enthusiastic to get swallowed in misery out of your own volition.”

“What are you talking about? Geralt doesn’t do that.”

“No, he just makes a sport out of it.” Lambert sighed. “Now, don’t worry about it. If it upsets you that much, I won’t say it again.”

“No, it’s not that.” Ciri clutched the bestiary in her hands, swallowed the knot on her throat. “Should I call him that too, do you think?”

“Pox on it if I know.” Lambert shrugged, falling back down on the furs he had been lounging on. “Do whatever you want, child, no one can tell you what to do.”

“You and the others tell me what to do all the time.”

“That’s because we can beat you up to a puddle if you disobey. Get strong first, and then no one will be able to tell you what to do, or you will beat them down to a puddle.”

Ciri thought it over. She decided: “Can we train with the sword tomorrow?” she asked.

“Fine,” Lambert said. “If you finish reading that chapter fast, and go to bed right after.”

For once, she obeyed without complaining.


End file.
